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Monthly Archives: August 2012

That will be most people’s reaction to news that the DPP is appealing the sentence handed down to Anthony Lyons.

There was outrage last month when the businessman, who sexually assaulted a woman, had five and half years of a six-year jail term suspended. The public anger at the sentence was also fuelled by the fact that Lyons was ordered to pay €75,000 to the victim, who did not ask for compensation.

The public was entitled to ask whether, if Lyons was not a “man of means”, as the judge said, he would have been treated so leniently?

In the aftermath of the sentence it was clear that many people, not least the victim’s family, felt that justice was not served in the case. “A disgrace” was the simple, accurate, description offered by relatives.

It’s hard to disagree. Lyons rugby tackled the woman to ground in a tree-lined, darkened area on Griffith Avenue as she was walking home and sexually assaulted her.

Lyons’ sentence is so short that, farcically, it is likely that he will be freed before the Court of Criminal Appeal hears the DPP’s appeal. In order for justice to be seen to be done, this case must be expedited through the court lists.

Sentencing Lyons, Judge Desmond Hogan ruled that he was “hitherto of good character, is well regarded and is unlikely to reoffend.”

That’s a compliment, I think, to Katie Taylor, Olympic medallist and world champion boxer. And it’s one that has popped up again and again this week.

Because, of course, we expect our female boxers to be dainty little diggers, checking their make-up at the bell.

We don’t expect them to fire flurries of punches and withstand heavy bodyblows.

And we’re not used to seeing them in a boxing ring, usually the preserve of swaggering and staggering men.

Katie Taylor fights like a man? She fights a better technical bout that most professional male boxers.

And she certainly fights better than most men I’ve see in action.

She’s proved herself as a world champion four times over, and her London performances are the icing on the cake.

And yet some folk continue to patronise the Wicklow woman.

Again and again, at the age of 26, she’s the Irish ‘girl’. Have you heard Paddy Barnes described as the Irish ‘boy’?

More than once there’s been a reference to her father Pete as Katie’s ‘daddy’. Ah, bless, a daddy watching his little girl trying her best. It’s heartwarming, isn’t it?

This cutesie crap is, of course, a million miles away from the reality of the professional training grind, the hours of mentoring and prep that the two Taylors put in, the clinical focus that’s yielded a slew of world championships and put Taylor on an Olympic podium.

But keep an ear out for it this evening – I guarantee it will slip into coverage of the gold medal bout.

But why is there this reaction among a minority of spectators?

Perhaps it’s Katie’s appearance.

We don’t expect champion boxers to be well-spoken, photogenic women from Bray.

Perhaps it’s her youthful looks.

But, at 26, Katie has already been boxing for 14 years, longer than many professional careers. Before that she lined out for local soccer teams. Maybe she played “like a boy” then?

Perhaps some people patronise Katie Taylor and her fellow female boxers because we’re just not used to seeing female boxing at the Olympics. The 2012 Games are the first time the sport’s featured, after all.

Whatever the reason it’s high time that people drop the cliches, the “isn’t she great for a girl” rubbish and applaud Katie Taylor the athlete, the winning Olympian.

Katie Taylor doesn’t fight like a man. She doesn’t fight like a woman either. She fights like Katie Taylor.